"I had my heart set on you
but nothing else hurts like you do."
-Christina Aguilera/Blake Shelton; 'Just a Fool' [Playlist]
"...the madness in me is brought out in the presence of you."
-Alanis Morissette; 'Madness' [Playlist]
San Diego; 1999
"Hey. That's my Danish."
Gibbs fixed a glare on the unfamiliar man who had just slammed a fist onto his breakfast. He didn't take kindly to people abusing his breakfast; cheese Danishes were about the only good things in his life these days.
"What is your problem, man?"
The guy stepped back, holding up his hands.
"It's my bad," he said gruffly. He felt for change or cash, and came up short. "I'll get you back for that."
"Yeah, you will," Gibbs agreed pointedly, sizing the guy up intently.
McAlister inclined his head, unfazed, still peeling that damn apple he'd been working on since he asked Gibbs to come in for a meeting.
"Gibbs, Leon. Leon, Gibbs," he introduced vaguely—without looking up.
Leon nodded.
"I'll remember," he promised.
"Me too," Gibbs said, giving him one last hard look before brushing past to re-take his seat.
Leon stormed out, slamming the door behind him, and Gibbs leaned forward darkly, examining his abused Danish. McAlister still peeled his apple methodically, coming off like an eccentric Bond villain.
"Where were we?" McAlister asked mildly, eyes on the fruit.
Gibbs shrugged. He sat down, uninterested.
"Some assignment, in Paris," he answered.
He didn't know what he was doing in San Diego. He hated California. It reminded him of ninety-one, Mike Franks, the Reynosas. Morrow sent Burley on his Agent Afloat rotation, and ordered Gibbs to San Diego for a transfer to Europe—and Gibbs followed orders.
"Decker's on point," McAlister said, looking up. His hands paused. "I want you in on it."
Gibbs narrowed his eyes. He picked up the Danish. He knew Decker, liked working with him. Wouldn't mind doing it again. If Decker were on point here, it made sense Morrow would put them together. Gibbs nodded, taking a bite.
McAlister shifted.
"You ever work with Jenny Shepard?" he asked.
It was only years of practice in remaining levelheaded in war that allowed him to continue chewing as if McAlister hadn't just chucked a grenade into his lap. Had he ever—McAlister didn't know who had trained Jenny Shepard? It was possible for anyone at NCIS not to know?
Gibbs looked away from McAlister, taken aback, completely blindsided by the question—so she was still with Decker, and she was in San Diego now—hadn't she left him for Los Angeles?
McAlister was waiting.
Gibbs didn't want to get into it.
Without thinking, without meaning to, he shook his head—no.
McAlister started talking in his bored drawl:
"She's young, been in San Diego prepping for this about six months…"
Gibbs wasn't listening.
San Diego, 1999
Two years has passed since their affair; he couldn't begin to imagine what would happen when they were face to face again—what they'd say to each other. He was spared tenseness or anger, though he was unsure if that was good, because when it happened—they weren't alone.
He walked out back to the courtyard that sprawled behind the San Diego field office—it was six days to Europe and he hadn't run across her yet—and she was leaning against a fence watching new recruits fire targets, carrying on a lazy conversation with the same Leon who had taken a fist to his cheese Danish.
It must have been her day off—or maybe she had been undercover—she was dressed casually, beach-appropriate; she had platform sandals on but she was armed openly, gun tucked in a holster slung over her hip.
"Hey, Gibbs!" Decker barked, grinning wryly.
He strolled over from a table and clapped his old Boss on the back. Gibbs shook his hand—but he was looking at her, when she turned around at the words, and met his eyes.
Her hair was different. A little shorter, with bangs sweeping across her forehead. It was braided, like it had been—he remembered—the day she said goodbye. Her lipstick was red, familiar red. Her face was unreadable for a moment, her body still, and then she smiled, straightened up, and turned around.
She arched an eyebrow.
"Hey Boss," she greeted mildly, no indication of anything more than cordial friendship. "How's Steve?"
"Seasick," Gibbs grunted.
Decker laughed, stepping back.
"You ready for this?" he asked, nudging Gibbs. "Read somethin' about Columbia in Franks' old stuff, told McAlister I needed you," he explained.
Jenny pursed her lips and glared at Decker lightly.
"Will likes his little practical jokes on me," she quipped.
He hadn't told her Gibbs was assigned to this operation until yesterday, and, collected as she was on the outside, she was still trying to get ahold of herself on the inside. She bit her lip; Gibbs was looking at her awfully intensely—that same way he used to look at her, when he could read her mind.
She tilted her head back, gesturing gracefully behind her.
"You met Vance?" she asked flippantly.
Gibbs nodded, breaking his eye contact with Jenny to nod at him.
"Leon," he greeted, and pointed at him seriously. "Two dollars, forty two cents," he said.
Leon Vance nodded, and Gibbs ignored the amused, interested look Decker was giving him in favor of looking back at Jenny. She didn't seem surprised by the little exchange; she was accustomed to Gibbs and how he worked.
Decker moved past, striking up conversation with Vance, going on about The Russian and a few more exercises and briefings before they embarked—Jenny stepped closer, crossing her arms across her middle, and tilted her head up, meeting Gibbs' eyes.
She broke the silence first.
"You still building that boat?"
"Nah, started over."
"Yeah?" she asked, brows lifting coolly. "Why's that?"
"Burned the other one," he answered brusquely.
Jenny pursed her lips. It seemed like a silly thing to do, after all of that hard work—she smirked; it clicked.
"You named it after Her, didn't you?" she asked wryly—the infamous pronoun again.
His look said it all, and she lifted a shoulder smartly.
"You could've sold it."
"And watch some other guy sail off on her?"
She laughed starkly.
"You didn't care who sailed off on Diane," she remarked carelessly, the other woman's name unfamiliar on her lips, dangerous, and loaded with history. She cocked her pristine brow again.
"Agency scuttlebutt says Fornell did," she added slyly—Tobias had married Gibbs' ex-wife, Decker said, and if word on the grapevine was true, there was still a shotgun ringing in his ears.
He just tilted his head at her, and narrowed his eyes, glaring at her mildly; intently. It was surreal; he thought it would hurt more. He could see she thought it would hurt more, too—and maybe it did, maybe they were too stunned; they weren't feeling it.
They weren't alone; they were facing working together in close quarters in Europe, and they'd had no time to steel themselves. Perhaps this was shallow—under the surface, everything still boiled, just like it always had.
She flicked her eyes down to his left hand.
"So, Jethro," she asked smoothly. "How's your French?"
She was asking, can we do this?
He shrugged.
"Need a translator," he answered gruffly, deadpan.
She wrinkled her nose, her teeth flashing, a racy, tempting comment on the tip of her tongue—but she held it back; professional, she reminded herself.
She set their rapport, just like that—with confidence; she was collected, with a hint of flirtation, guarded but raw, and he realized they were still as volatile as they had been back in ninety-seven, and the line they would walk in in Europe—was very thin.
Paris, 1999
If there was any line at all.
They were based in Paris, but their operation necessitated a good amount of traveling—long nights, grueling stakeouts, stealth, violence, and the impeccable spy work required in between. It was six weeks of investigative work, detailed planning, moratoriums on mistakes and constant vigilance in the heart of Paris, where they learned their mission—tracking, infiltrating, and thwarting this arms ring that had snaked poisonously throughout Eastern Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union; it was a follow up on Vance's Operation Trident, a swan song of striking, deadly precision to draw out the ring-leader and take him down.
It was deep cover identities and a black language riddled with code words and he was floored by how talented Jenny was in all of this. He had military stealth beaten into him, and a sniper's skill laced into his bones, but she was a natural—elite, elusive, ahead of the game, political, sharp.
It was no wonder they'd wanted her here.
Positano, 1999
He thought they kept it professional an impressive length of time before the line blurred—working with her was seductive, their affair in DC was interwoven into every conversation they had, into the very sinew of their synced working relationship—it was on a gun run they were interfering with in Positano, in Italy, that they broke the reigns holding them both back—almost.
It was an almost mishap, a close-call in the execution of their sting, that left Decker chasing down one ex-Kremlin agent to prevent a leak, Jenny in hand-to-hand combat with someone twice her size that ended with her knife in his throat, her lip busted, her wrist broken, and Gibbs swearing mildly about a bullet graze that had taken a chunk off of his right shoulder.
And back at the safe house, she had the gall—she couldn't help it—to mock him, while he helped set her wrist and she held her breath and braced her foot against his thigh, her nails digging into his hand as he crudely fixed her injury—she mocked him, recalling his gunshot wound in DC, reminding him that he hadn't been able to get her up her stairs, could barely pace himself, primly going on about the bruise that had plagued her for the next week—
-until she realized he was looking at her with smoldering eyes, and she was just talking because she knew if she stopped things would take a turn for the x-rated, and she wasn't sure she could take it, she'd been doing so well holding him off, balancing on the cliff-!
He stood up, as if to take a step back, and she was the one who stood up quickly after him and lunged for his shoulder, her hand going over the mild bullet graze, turning her head up to meet his lips when they came crashing down, and it was heated and infused with the sea-breezy summer of Italy—it was nostalgic, exciting, unburdened with everything that had weighed them down in DC—and it would have gone further than urgent touches and hard kissing if Decker hadn't stormed in, sweaty from a fight, and ignored the scene he walked in on but to ominously say:
"No one's getting laid, or everyone's getting laid, so pick one, Jenny," and disappeared upstairs to shower off the blood.
She was spooked, she stumbled back, and sat down, looking up at Gibbs—and the look in her eye had him wondering if Decker had something to do with her leaving. She touched her lips, and then smirked at him, and cocked an eyebrow.
There was something distinctly different to the kiss—she picked up on it, and it was lightness, the absence of guilt and darkness, a sort of clean slate; Europe was fair playing ground.
Marseille, 1999
Positano blurred the line; their second night on a brutal stakeout in Marseille obliterated it.
She hadn't even tried to lie to herself—she knew what was going to happen the moment Decker told them they were on their own and returned to Paris to map out the next move; she didn't try to stop it because she wanted it, as much as he did.
It reminded her of when they had done this in Maryland—but he wasn't married now, he was free to do whatever the hell he wanted, and that was her, and she was game. She hadn't ever stopped loving him, even with all of the work and distractions in California, and in the cleanliness that characterized the advent of the relationship this time, she somehow managed to forget Diane's warnings, and the reasons it would be impossible to be with him.
In DC they had an affair, now it was a fling—and she foolishly told herself they could keep it light this time, devouring each other in a hot attic, in August, in France—getting naked and getting sweaty just to cool off and chase the breathlessness and the pleasure they both missed.
"You wanna tell Decker?" Gibbs asked against her lips, somewhere between sweltering afternoon and muggy night on the fourth day in Marseille, his chest pressing into hers, hand on her thigh, knees on either side of her hips.
She laughed, tilting her head back, her skin flushed.
"He's the one who locked us in a room alone."
"Think he saw it comin'?"
He moved against her and she moaned.
"Jethro, it's like he painted fuck me on my forehead."
Gibbs grinned, and she pulled him closer, laughing into his lips, digging her claws into this exhilaration—the lack of guilt that put the heady rush in this time around. She wrapped her legs around his waist, flipped them over, let her hair fall over her shoulders into his face.
"Fuck me again," she murmured into his lips, her heartbeat crashing against his.
She stumbled stupidly into the same trap, thinking they could hold if off at just sex, telling herself brashly that she could forget the depth of her feeling for him, keep a weather eye on the horizon of her shining career, and have him in her bed and under her skin at the same time.
Serbia/Paris, 1999
A colossal triumph that started in Paris and ended in the heart of Stalingrad meant they had to lie low and regroup—Decker put them in Serbia, in contact with the Los Angeles office's Agent Callan, to debrief for the next move, and it was a damn free for all, three weeks in a secluded farmhouse with literally nothing to do but relive every sexually charged moment of their history—and relive it openly, without subterfuge, with no one to watch, and no one to judge.
She tried to shake the notion that this was too good; it was too light, and it was because they were ignoring the issues that were starting to creep back into their relationship; his resentment of her for abandoning him when he needed her, her refusal to discuss her father, the coldness that defined her ambition and talent.
She was a much more mature woman in Europe; she had grown up, she had found her footing and her niche at NCIS; she butted heads with him more than ever before, the least experienced of the group but the one who took the most risks, who thought the furthest out of the box.
She had been responsible for the success in Stalingrad that earned them a break in Serbia; she got a little laid back, caught up in being a woman for a while, alone with Jethro in the rural backyard of the Balkans, and when they were back in Paris, still catching their breath from the passion that derailed their professionalism outside of Belgrade, she fucked up—she shot a cop she mistook for an arms dealer.
Decker almost had to nix the entire operation; Gibbs covered for her—and it was so like the hostage situation he'd had her back on in DC, right down to the Eastern European influence, that she was shaken and the levity was sucked out of their fling; Gibbs was there again, supporting her when Decker lashed out and ripped her a new one, and Gibbs took control of her-he snapped at her and backed her up, but took Decker's side-and harshly nipped her arrogance in the bud when they had to prematurely kick start an operation in the Czech Republic lest the framework of the Paris endgame collapsed.
"This is wrong," Jenny insisted violently, fighting with Decker in the corridor, "this is wrong—I have a bad feeling, Will—"
The synergy Deck and Jenny had baffled Gibbs; they worked together immaculately, but they argued as if they were trained to do it; the both of them were so well versed in semantics and circumlocution and black ops that it frustrated Gibbs to no end.
"You're the reason we have to move now, J," Decker fired back firmly, cutting her off. "Borisov is going to recognize you—take him out when he does!"
Prague, 1999
Camped in the seediest quarter of town Prague offered, they were on the verge of executing the final play before they could move towards the entire point of the original operation—assassination.
She had a stressed, terrified look on her face and she stormed away toward her mark; she knew her fuck up on the Champs-Elysees was why they were half-way to blown covers and why they had to take this step now, but she was sick to her stomach with a gut feeling—if Gibbs was on point, he would listen to her.
She took her position in the bar where their targets were, and it was hours later when she tracked them through the streets of Prague, trusting that Decker and Gibbs had her back—completely unaware that they had both been side-tracked by an unexpected run in with Interpol.
She was alone when the Russians made her, and later, she could never remember how she got out alive—she did page both of her partners before she went down in a scuffle with the last man standing and came out with the knowledge that a nearly point blank gunshot wound to the thigh was something she never wanted to experience again.
Prague, 1999
Gibbs got to the scene first—before any bystanders could, and he hit his knees on the cobblestones next to Jenny, his cell phone in his hand in an instant, barking orders, demanding Decker get the car instead of coming to assist.
"Be quiet," he said, shoving his palm against her lips. "Be quiet, Jen," he ordered hoarsely, disguising the panic in his tone.
She thrashed in agony, only hurting herself, and he tried to hold her down, keep her quiet, and stem the blood flow—there was a lot of blood. He swore in relief at the squealing of Decker's tires and picked her up, carrying her to the car, grunting at Decker in thanks when he got the back door open for him.
"Give me your knife," he said, letting go of Jenny's mouth.
"Where the hell is—don't you follow your own rules, Gibbs?" Decker shouted, anxiously glancing back and forth between Shepard and the road. "Jesus fucking Christ, is she okay?"
He ignored a speed bump, and Jenny screamed, twisting violently as if to get away from the pain, digging her nails into Gibbs' arms. She was sobbing, murmuring incomprehensibly.
"Where's she hit?"
"Thigh," Gibbs answered, taking to her jeans with the knife and cutting them up, trying to get to the wound and get enough material for a tourniquet. "She needs a hospital."
"Can't do it."
"Take her to a goddamn hospital!" Gibbs barked.
He pulled Jenny towards him and wrapped his arm around her, wedging his thumb in her mouth. She fought him—she knew he was going to tie the tourniquet around her leg and it was going to hurt, and he pressed his lips to her temple and shushed her tensely. She gasped, breathless from crying.
"Jen," he snapped, shaking her. "Stay with me."
He looked up sharply, and Decker glanced back again, his face pale. He made a quick, executive decision—a left turn, for a hospital.
Her face was white as a sheet, and Gibbs was strangled with fear; this was something he had never experienced, a woman he felt this fiercely for bleeding out, struggling with death in his lap.
"Gibbs!" demanded Decker.
"She's unconscious," he updated.
He shook her again.
"Jen," he barked loudly. He ran his thumb over her lips. "Jen!"
Paris, 1999
She survived Prague; the round to the thigh put the darkness back in their relationship.
He was reminded of the loss of Shannon; he was reminded that Jenny had left him before. She was changed by the event—scarred in the way that all agents were after their first bullet-inflicted brush with death.
The operation became more invested, meticulous; there was no more time for sneaking off to the Parisian markets, or breaking for dinner at the Eiffel tower; it was work, and it started to feel very much like their last month in DC. Her injury was bad; his touch was the only one she could tolerate near the wound, and time was not on their side.
In the midst of a deep cover mission, she anchored her reality to him; she kept track of who Jenny Shepard really was through him, and he was as much invested in her as he had been years ago, when there had been a ring on his finger.
Paris, 1999
Because in Paris she was the only women in his life, she was less demure-she was fierce, passionate, everything she couldn't fully be when he'd been married, and so they argued more.
Decker stayed out of it-he had always been a pro at remaining neutral and ignoring the trials and tribulations of his colleagues' love lives, save that one moment when he had bee brutally honest with Jenny. They'd gotten so close in Los Angeles, she was like his sister now, and when her fighting with Gibbs woke him up one night, he groaned and covered his head with a pillow, sick of it, annoyed with it-they fought so damn much since Prague had happened. She'd gotten a concussion on an op this morning; Gibbs was supposed to be keeping her awake, not antagonizing her.
Decker again resolved to stay out of it, but when the screaming got louder and he heard a loud bang, he got up, and chose to interfere, because it sounded like someone was going to get hurt.
That someone was going to be Gibbs, and Decker needed him to kill Zhukov.
Decker stormed down the hall tiredly, hellbent on busting it up-he could hear them yelling at each other more clearly as he got closer.
"-you son of a bitch-"
"-you hit the road, Jen, you left-!"
Jenny threw something.
"I can't-how can-I love you, Jethro, you-bastard!" she shouted, and Decker hesitated at the door, suddenly reluctant to break it up, standing there when Gibbs laughed hollowly.
"Yeah, Jen, that'll be the day," he scoffed meanly, blowing off her words.
Decker swore; he knew how Jenny could be when she was backed into a corner, scared, or vulnerable; she was like a feral cat, and she always brought down the predator attacking her. He opened the door roughly and she stumbled back, apparently having been just on the other side, on the verge of leaving. Her face flushed and she winced, embarrassed to find him there. She opened her mouth and then she flew forward, grabbing Decker tightly around he shoulders.
"I didn't ruin his marriage," she sobbed uncertainly, shoving her head into his chest.
"Jesus," Decker grumbled under his breath, backing up and pulling her with him. She yanked away and whirled around.
"I wasn't even the other woman! Not really!" she yelled at Gibbs. She ran her hand through her hair. "I feel like her, now I know what Diane felt like-!"
"Cool it," Decker barked, grabbing her arm again and dragging her backwards a little. "Calm down and shut up, I'm tryin' to sleep," sometimes it was the only way to knock sense into Shepard when she was riled up.
She turned toward him with red eyes, and Gibbs stormed forward, shooting Decker a violent look that clearly told him to stay out of it. He took Jenny's arm gently and pulled her back, putting his hand on her neck.
"I'm sorry, Jen," he said gruffly.
Decker stared, and she seemed totally calmed by it; she touched his hands.
"You don't have to make people hurt like you do, Jethro!" she burst out, and Decker threw his hands up and left-he slammed the door loudly and stormed back to his bedrooms.
He'd tried two years ago to get her to see that, and she'd jumped right back into his arms in Europe. It was useless to make her see, and he was thinking maybe he should have asked for Callan or Hanna on this op instead.
Paris, 1999
Gibbs watched her sleep, his eyes narrowed, tracing the contours of her face. It had been a bad fight, even by their standards and Christ were they good at fighting. It almost felt good, fighting with her, she dragged more out of him emotionally than any woman had been able to since he'd lost his family, and now, he watched her, and he was confused-what was she so upset about, what had she meant?
He'd said awful things, mean things-but she had come back with some pretty perceptive, deep stuff herself, almost as if she knew what was in his past.
He shouldn't have reproached her for leaving him; he shouldn't have told her he had a perfectly good marriage before she showed up. It wasn't true and they both knew he didn't mean it, but he hadn't expected her to take his words so seriously-he hadn't expected her to tell him she loved him.
He reached over and touched her shoulder, shaking her awake, caring for the concussion. She rolled over groggily and blinked at him to show she was fine, she wasn't losing consciousness or life in the light sleep, and she snuggled into him, forgiving him, because his apology had been so sincere and his touch was so gentle.
He wanted to make it up to her, see her smile again, bring the light back into their relationship.
Maybe-find some way-to tell her-
Paris, 1999
He bought her a coat—expensive, leather, soft as butter—in October; he rolled his eyes and teased her for not bringing one to France; she retorted that she'd spent too much time in California to remember there were cold places in the world.
She tried it on seductively, with nothing under it, and for two weeks, there was light again—it was a lull in the mission, and they were savoring that; they savored it in bed, in each other, in stolen candlelit moments, until Decker was handed an order from McAlister, and he handed them each a file with a name, a location, and a coded order.
Jenny's read: Svetlana Chernetskaya; Paris: Eliminate Target.
Paris, 1999
She couldn't do it.
She bested the Russian woman in hand-to-hand combat, forced her to the floor, on her knees, and held a Sig Saur to her blond head—and she couldn't do it, because before this moment, Jenny Shepard had never heard of Svetlana Chernetskaya.
She was a woman McAlister had uncovered recently; had attempted to turn to them, and added to the hit list when he failed. She was the lover of The Russian Gibbs had in his file; she was the handler of the man Decker had in his.
She begged for her life; unarmed, and helpless, she cried—and she begged for her life—and Jenny gave it to her. She couldn't look into this woman's eyes and kill her, not without a list of crimes, not without personal grudge to drive her.
She looked down at Svetlana Chernetskaya, and all she saw was a woman desperately stumbling through a story of why she did this—she had nothing, she'd been an orphan, rescued by the cruel man she was attached to, unable to help loving him-and she was pregnant, and Jenny couldn't...she couldn't murder a pregnant woman.
Jenny's hand shook; the other woman shoved a spear into her soft spot, and she remembered—acutely—another of the reasons she'd had to leave Jethro. He made her soft. He interfered. She had revenge to exact, a job to do, justice to serve, and Jethro made her soft.
She slammed the butt of her gun into Svetlana's skull and left her unconscious—left her to get away alive and come back with a vengeance, a vendetta, against a green-eyed American woman in a black wig.
Paris, 1999
Gibbs didn't blink; didn't hesitate.
He walked up behind Anatoly Zhukov, and he shot him—double tapped his chest, holstered his weapon, and left the scene immaculate.
Paris, 1999
"Jen."
She tore the wig off, leaned forward heavily at the vanity in their hotel room.
She shook her head.
"Jenny," he said.
She looked over at him, and he crouched next to her.
"You okay?"
She nodded. Her right eye twitched. The tell alerted him, concerned him. He put his hand on her thigh where the scar from the bullet wound was. He squeezed comfortingly and she swallowed hard, parting her lips—Decker barged in.
"Are we clear?" he asked tensely. "We out clean?
"Yes," Jenny answered coldly, and Gibbs wasn't looking at her—he didn't see her right eye twitch again.
She seemed to forget that Decker was in the room; he let out a whoop of excitement and collapsed in an armchair, but she leaned down and kissed Gibbs, ignoring Deck—he was enough of a friend that it didn't matter-and relief and peace washed through her when Jethro reached up to twist his hand into her long, red hair—free from the black disguise.
Paris, 1999
There was a void stretch of time after they executed the end of the operation; they had a waiting period to determine if they were really clear—and they were, in that time, technically unattached from NCIS to deter from international incident.
They were allowed to relax, let loose—enough that Gibbs was out at four in the morning one week dragging a deliriously drunk Decker out of a whorehouse, marching him home to Jenny—who tried to be stern, and yet couldn't stop laughing when he tripped half-heartedly up the stairs and fell asleep on the landing.
She spent hours sitting on a bridge over the Seine, wrapped in the gorgeous coat he'd bought her, warm, Jethro standing next to her, laughing about the days back in DC, looking at it through rose coloured glasses while the scabs that covered the old pain tore and ripped away and bled under the surface.
In the snow one afternoon on that bridge, she caught him looking at her, and pursed her lips—on the brink of telling him what he meant to her, what he'd always meant to her, with sincerity this time, instead of screaming it at him accidentally, when he was angry, when she was desperate to make him understand-and then she realized he wasn't looking at her, he was looking through her; he was longing for someone else.
She realized with a sinking feeling that Diane had been right—Diane had always been right; she wasn't Shannon, and as long as she remained Jenny, she would never come close to having all of Jethro.
She pressed her lips together and turned away, squinting her eyes in the winter sun.
Paris, 1999
He leaned over her one morning, lazy in the early hours, and pulled her hair off of her neck; letting his lips linger at her throat. He said her name, waking her up, sliding his hand down her spine.
"Move in with me, Jen," he muttered, his lips trailing over her bare shoulders.
She opened her eyes, shifting towards him, emotions running wild. Her eyes stung and she fluttered her lashes. She wanted to say yes. She wanted to go back to DC with him, be with him.
He was, she realized, the only man she was ever going to really love.
He said, move in with me, Jen. He didn't say, I want you, Jen. I need you, Jen. I love you, Jen.
She turned into his arms and kissed him, answering only in silence, not really answering at all.
Paris, 1999
She didn't say goodbye in Europe; she was too much of a coward, too weak, to face the goodbye they had two years ago at the foot of her steps. She couldn't take the look in his eyes, his stoic demand that she stay. She remembered how he'd touched her and kissed her, his eyes blue and desperate, growling at her to stay, asking her not to leave him, and she didn't think she'd resist this time, and he still wasn't capable of loving her and she still had to avenge her father.
She remembered asking him what he'd do if she was just gone one morning-and how he'd viciously told her he'd rather her just leave.
She wrote him a letter; left it in the pocket of the coat he'd given her. The flight she took away from him this time was a flight she took alone, and she closed her eyes and turned into the window and cried until the plane touched down in St. Petersburg, and there she dried her eyes, and threw herself into her career, and she didn't cry again for a very long time.
Paris, 1999
The letter did make him angry—it worked beautifully; he hated her after that. He drank, trying to find the answers to his misery at the bottom of vodka bottles—good bourbon couldn't be found in this accursed country.
He couldn't make Jenny stay and he hated her for it and he hated that the only time he faced the reality of the problem—his problem—was when it slapped him in the face, like it had when Diane left, and this time—when Jenny left again.
Washington, DC 2000
He was back in DC for the millennium, alone, numb, blindly angry enough to jump headfirst into another marriage with a sweet, funny woman—Stephanie. She was uncomplicated and spacey; demure and passive, nothing like Jenny, exactly what he needed to take his mind off it—and he ended up having to drag her to Moscow, right after they got married, because damned if NCIS didn't ship him right back to Europe.
Moscow, 2000
The cold was biting and the ground covered in snow when he ran into her on the steps in the Red Square in Moscow.
She was bundled tightly against the cold, red hair pulled around her face and tucked into a thick, soft wool scarf—had she just come out of the Kremlin?—and she looked up right as he stopped, stunned—and she stopped too.
They stared at each other, frozen in time, frozen in the cold. The world, it seemed, stopped moving.
Startled, Stephanie paused, yanked back abruptly by Gibbs' frozen stance, and she cuddled close to him for warmth, peering at the other woman with interest. Gibbs said nothing, and Stephanie looked at him uncertainly; the woman was looking at him, staring into his eyes defiantly, and then Jenny looked at Stephanie, and Stephanie didn't miss the scathing look her left ring finger received.
The cool green eyes snapped back to Gibbs.
"Вы еще не научились," she said huskily, her eyes glinting.
He said something harsh in Russian, rough, angry words:
"Ты смотришь холодно," he lashed at. "Оставьте ваше пальто в Париже?"
The redhead bit her lip; she looked away, and then she looked back, one last time. She nodded politely at Stephanie, and ducked her head, storming off up the stairs, and Gibbs wrenched forward, looking straight ahead as if nothing had happened.
"Who was she?" Stephanie asked.
She thought he wasn't going to answer; she shook his arm insistently. She didn't speak Russian; she was dying to know what had been said.
"Jethro."
"Worked with her, last year," he said.
He tried to ignore the pain that seeing her had awakened.
Stephanie turned, looking over her shoulder, straining to see the woman—but she was gone, and Gibbs' fourth wife looked up at him uncertainly, sure he wasn't telling her the whole truth.
Washington, DC 2001
Gibbs stood toe-to-toe with this smug Baltimore cop, sizing him up.
"Rule five," he said gruffly, imparting his wisdom. "You don't waste good."
He pointed DiNozzo to the NCIS human resources room—he wanted DiNozzo, and he hadn't felt confident about an Agent in a long—a very long time now. This was something good; a trainee, a probie to focus on at work.
A probie who was going to give him a headache and piss him off rather than break up one of his marriages and catapult him into a second one that—right now—was ending in another divorce.
DiNozzo grinned his shit eating, lady-killer grin, and Gibbs glared at him balefully, turning and storming down the hall.
It was about time he had a team again.
Cairo, 2003
If it weren't for Ziva David, Jenny Shepard would be dead, and what had already happened was devastating enough.
She moved, and pain wracked her limbs—she gave a strangled, shocked whimper, and the noise woke Ziva up—Ziva, who was unexpectedly sleeping next to her in a plastic hospital chair.
"Do not move much, Shepard," she said mildly. "Your internal injuries are very severe."
"I feel it," Jenny said hoarsely, and grimaced.
"The doctors removed both bullets from your ribcage," Ziva went on professionally. "And you are lucky—" the girl touched Jenny's neck, where a thick bandage was taped to her fair skin. "The last bullet did not nick your jugular; it only grazed your skin."
Jenny nodded.
"Yeah," she rasped. "Lucky."
She should be grateful. She was, after all, alive.
She'd had horrible dreams, feverish dreams, dreams of Prague, bullets in her thigh, and Jethro shaking her, anchoring her to life in the back of a car.
Ziva touched her forehead again, and it was comforting. She smiled at her faintly, keeping her eyes open, afraid if she closed them she would be assaulted with memories of the boiler room they'd kept her in, of the men who'd been there with her, with their pliers and their cigarettes and their steel-toed boots—
She gasped, and Ziva shushed her, murmuring in melodic Hebrew.
"May I ask you something, Jenny?" she inquired politely, after a moment of silence.
Jenny just nodded.
"You were very sick when I got there—understandably, it took so much to refuse to tell them anything—"
-and Jenny hadn't; she hadn't blown any cover or betrayed an ally.
"You were asking for Jethro," Ziva said in her calm alto voice. "It is a Hebrew name—but I do not know of one of our contacts by it? This Jethro, who is he?"
Jenny swallowed. She looked away and shrugged her shoulders, welcoming the pain that shot through her this time because it was much easier to bear than the emotional pain brought on by his name.
The memory of the last time she'd seen him, when he'd been so harsh and unforgiving in Moscow, still burned her.
"He's a man," she answered quietly, "from—a lifetime ago."
Washington, DC 2005
MTAC buzzed with activity, on the satellite screen and in the audience. Caitlin Todd was dead, presumably at the hand of Ari Haswari—Ziva David's half brother. It was this that brought her back to the states, back to DC.
She sat in the front of the room, two rows in front of him, and she was calm—she was secure.
It had been six years.
Six years, and when she turned around and looked at him, and he stared at her from his seat, his blue eyes meeting hers and reflecting intensely every emotionally charged ounce of the history between them—she could still breathe, and she was still secure.
Six years, and she was where she had always wanted to be—she had confidence, she had achievement; she wasn't just a young woman drowning and fighting and proving herself anymore.
She had loved him with consuming fire and then heartbreaking despair and finally with calm acceptance, and it was that mature acceptance that she would always love him, that she simply had to stop fighting it—and that he may never be able to conquer his demons for her—that enabled her to move forward, and smile.
Washington, DC 2005
He knew it was her when she stood; he saw the hair, and it all flashed before his eyes—the physical touch of it, the emotional strain of it, everything—he saw it, Maryland, Paris, Serbia, Postano, Prague, Moscow—Jenny.
He stared at her, and his head was clear; the epiphany crashed into him heavily, nearly floored him:
He had fallen for this woman in the same way he had fallen for Shannon—unexpectedly, completely, recklessly—and he couldn't have known then that she would be the second woman to haunt him for the rest of his life—not because he had lost her to death too young, but because he had so completely failed her.
She held his eye for a moment; she cocked an eyebrow, and smirked—and maybe...did that mean it wasn't too late?
She said:
"Hello, Jethro."
Finis.
The Russian Dialogue:
Jenny: You haven't learned.
Jethro: You look cold. Leave your coat in Paris?
-Alexandra
xoxo
story #100
*Note that much of the dialogue is recognizable because it is NOT MINE. If you think it sounds familiar, then I borrowed it from an episode, and all credit goes to the NCIS writers, not myself.